Gastown,Gentrification,Geography, & Geeking
By samanthaorwell on January 18, 2008 - 5:23pm
Let me just say…
It has been ridiculously beautiful in Vancouver for the past 3 days. Good lord, if only I had time to enjoy it. Or if only my proctastination-skillz didn't preclude me from enjoying it. Anyhow, let's talk about Workspace. I heard about it last year but the guy describing it was a lame-talker ( i.e. can make anything, even exciting events, sound lame). I rediscovered it somehow by perusing (yes, on Facebook) online. That, coupled with my new found love for Gastown, makes me excited about this idea.
Workspace ( http://abetterplacetowork.com/) is this innovative idea where people, who don't really need offices, come together and work in an office-type environment. It's like all those web-based telework people who can work out of home, or just as easily out of a coffee shop, but decide they like, or need, a formalized work space. And for the odd work meeting/appointment which just looks better than saying, "I'll meet you at the Starbucks." Its got all the office essentials, desks, board rooms, kitchenettes, coffee etc. And so here we have this coherent office space, with people who don't need an office and people who don't work together. And it runs like a membership-based organization where the price level is a function of how much time you spend at Workspace. Now I'm sure I have some fascinating things to say about this, but I'm still working on fully understanding this concept and all the socio-psychological related topics. I'm sure it will be Lefebvre-esque when I figure it all out. Anyhow, I just thought that needed to be said. Workspace. SUCH an interesting concept. Check it out.
Gastown (http://www.gastown.org/): I've become quite interested in Gastown lately. It's got this gritty feeling in a completely stylized tourist (consumptive) space. I committed to extending the reaches of my "time-space" geography (insert Hagerstrand *here*). Mostly, my touring space is bounded by Seymour, Robson (Pender before the construction), Howe (extends to further West when on Robson), and the Granville St. bridge. The shopping districts, obviously. I started to go to Yaletown more, but after spending some time there I can't say I'm into it. There's something missing there, not a place you can spend time in in the day- really only a night-lounge type place. I rediscovered Gastown after several outings to SFU Harbour Centre let me stray into the neighbourhood. It's really quite an "enchanting" walk down Water Street (see Rhodri Windsor-Liscombe http://ahva.ubc.ca/facultyIntroDisplay.cfm?InstrID=20&FacultyID=1 and his fabulously drawn out discussion on gas-lamps). The street and architecture are quite charming. And then there are the tourist shops which shamefully commodify cheap reproductions of First Nations' culture. I have to try extra hard to look in another direction as it might make me fall out of love with Gastown. The area actually reminds me of San Francisco a bit. It reminds me of the feeling of "mod" clubs and those small and stylish, "sophisticatedly gritty" venues in the corners and alleys of the city. The whole of Gastown is like a gentrified alley. It has the same feeling of walking down a dirty alleyway, but you've got a sort of up-classed atmosphere. Richard Florida (http://creativeclass.com/) would be so proud.
And speaking of gentrification, Florida, and all that jazz.. I always thought that the reason I didn't go to Gastown was because it was so far. It is not far at all. It is either because I did not know the area well enough back then, or, and more […missing appropriate adjective, but synonym used now will be "sexy"] is the idea that new-build gentrification (see Loretta Lees) around the downtown core is extending itself into the Downtown Eastside, thereby leading my perceptions on by believing that it's a "nice-walk" to Gastown. I'm sort of into mental geographies. Like the way I never go to Main Street anymore because of the Canada Line construction [good lord, did I just say "Canada Line" and not "RAV line"? I DO believe the re-labelling (due to a change in funding structures) has worked!] ( http://www.canadaline.ca/). See, Main Street didn't get any farther, that's a bit of an impossibility, but rather the walk there is so excruciatingly ugly that I can no longer bring myself to trek in that direction. So Cambie is like a mental-block for me. Like my friend said, he always uses Cambie as an excuse for being late even when the traffic isn't slowed by it, or even when he doesn't pass by it at all. It's something we automatically associate as being a "pain" so all you need to do is say, "Cambie" and people go "ohh..right." Even if there is no rightness to it. Ever since construction I've been going to Granville or Kits to get my kicks- prior to construction I was doing Main quite a bit. I need to write a book..or short article about mental blocks and time-space geographies. It's interesting. well, for me anyhow.
And what is this complete inability for me to write a casual Facebook note without quoting, referencing, or footnoting something? I've been reading too much. I need to dumb-up and get back into the real world. Too many late nights hermitting in the basement of Koerner has left me unable to cope in the real [social] world. I went to Chapters the other day. Because shopping made me sick, and the look of shopping made me sick. So to "get away from it all" I went into Chapters to sit down and read a book. Seriously, and whenever my phone rang I ignored it because I assumed it was to ask me to go out, and I didn't *want* to go out because all I wanted to do was read [fyi, the book was Mike Davis' Planet of the Slums, which ended up being too numbery for my tired brain]. It was Friday. [Fridays are my official "do-nothing days" where I commit to turning my brain off no matter how much work I have]. MY goodness, what ever happened to party-Sam? Remember at one point I had a life and there was even some scoffing at the idea that I was going to study or read? This 'plan A' better be a good idea. My goal of one day professoring better not be a dud.
[btw, SHAME if there was no noticing going on for my alliterative brilliance. That wasn't even on purpose, I've become so used to making alliterative phrases for kids to learn sh** easier that it rolls off in the everyday. See, there ARE skills in teaching.]
[UPDATE: […missing appropriate adjective, but synonym used now will be "sexy"] = "provocative". After three days I figured out the word!]
